It obviously depends upon what else your program is doing

That's the point here - context :-)

It depends on the type of file, of it's importance, of whatever the whole program is about - but if I want to die on a failed open (and not retry, close & retry, re-initialize handles, etc, whatever, or else), I almost certainly want to die on a failed close as well. But, that depends... my point is, if a close fails, something very unusual,weird and unforeseen is happening for which I don't have automatic recovery strategies, and I'd better not do anything beyond the fact.

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